A Different Way of Collecting

Set Builder – this person likes to build sets, the players or teams are unimportant as its finding at least 1 card for each number in the set is whats important. If he want even more of a challenge he becomes a master set builder.

Team Collector– this person usually has one favourite team and he collects cards only from that team.

Player Collector – this person only collects a certain player or players from each years sets.

Hall of Fame Collector – this person goes about collecting at least one card from each member of baseball’s Hall of Fame.

There are hundreds of other types of collectors which include stat collectors (people that collect a card for each player who leads a particular stat for a year ie. HRs RBIs SBs etc.), name collectors (people who collect players with the same last name as theirs). and birthday collectors (people who collect cards of players who have the same birthday as they do), but the four most popular are the ones cited above.

I. myself, am a Set Builder and a Hall of Fame Collector. But lately I have been mulling over an idea for a different kind of collecting. This type has nothing to do with complete sets, individual teams, or individual players, it has to do with Historical Representation. I am sure others have thought up this idea long before I did, and their are probably hundreds of collectors who have thought of doing what I am contemplating on doing, or have even started doing it already.

What I am talking about is getting at least one card from every set ever produced in the hobby. Many collectors would like to collect certain sets that they find attractive, perhaps its the 1930s Goudey’s, or the earlier T206 cards, perhaps its the 50’s Bowman’s or Topps cards, whatever the card sets involved, unless they are post 80s, most sets are beyond the reach of most collectors. Do you have the thousands of dollars it would cost to buy the sets from the 60s and earlier. Most would answer no, but almost everyone can afford a single representative from all these sets.

Wouldn’t it be cool to have a wall in your man cave, basement or other collector space dedicated to the history of the hobby one card at a time? The wall would look incredible, starting with the late 1800s all the way up to 2015, one card from each of the major sets, perhaps identified by a small plaque underneath each card. Once it’s finished you can look upon the whole hobby on one wall and get a different perspective on the hobby than anyone who hasn’t accomplished this feat. All at a very reasonable cost.

Here is an example:

Display Wall

I used the more famous cards from the various sets, but you don’t need to as any card in the various sets would be perfectly representational. There are hundreds of sets that cards can be taken from, I used some of the more famous sets as a representation.